


Steter Week

by Sapphy



Series: Tumblr Fics [5]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: 00Q - Freeform, Abusive Relationships, Alternate Universe - Canon, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Criminals, Alternate Universe - Dark, Alternate Universe - Fae, Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Alternate Universe - Office, Alternate Universe - Psychopaths, Alternate Universe - Spies & Secret Agents, Alternate Universe - Werewolves Are Known, Amnesia, Angst, Asexual Character, Asexuality, Blatant Hustle rip-off, Creeper Peter, Crimes & Criminals, Damaged Stiles Stilinski, Dark Stiles, Fae & Fairies, M/M, Magical Realism, Magical Stiles Stilinski, Office Sex, Panty Kink, Prompt Fill, Spies & Secret Agents, Spoilers, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-25
Updated: 2014-10-30
Packaged: 2018-02-22 14:42:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 6,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2511398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sapphy/pseuds/Sapphy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>My entries into this years Steter week, one prompt a day. </p>
<p>Five drabbles (available to anyone who wants to turn them into complete fics) and one 5,000 word fic, all in one delicious package!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prompt: Dark Stiles

Peter doesn’t often fight, or kill, not anymore. Sometimes he does, sometimes all he wants is the feeling of warm blood on his claws, but most days it’s more fun to watch Stiles do it.

Stiles is clever, maybe as clever as him, but when he gets like that, when the red mist comes down, he’s happy to take orders as long as he gets to maim someone. He’ll do anything Peter says as long as it sounds fun, and Peter’s suggestions are always fun, so Peter gets to choose the target, aim Stiles like a weapon, and fire. They’ve carved their way through half the Supernatural power structure of the East Coast, and he doesn’t think Stiles has even noticed.

When the victim of the hour is a wet pool of congealing blood and brains, Peter takes Stiles, very very gently, into his arms and holds him until he stops shaking. Then he takes him back to wherever they’re staying, and he bathes him, and puts him to bed, tucking him in like a child.

Most nights they fuck, but not on nights like these, not when Stiles is freshly washed and still faintly trembling. Killing isn’t sexual for him, it’s more like a baptism, like a cleansing of his very soul, and even Peter isn’t quite twisted enough to take advantage of the strange childlike state he enters afterwards.

Tomorrow, Stiles will wake renewed, louder and brasher and hornier than ever, the wide eyed flailing limbed human that the rest of the world gets to see. But on nights like that, when Stiles still has death on his hands and blood in his mind, he becomes something ethereal and beautiful, this defenceless child that only Peter gets to see.

There’s a million things he loves about Stiles, from the way he laughs to the glee with which he tortures Peter’s enemies, but this, the way he turns something monstrous into something innocent, will always be the most alluring to Peter.


	2. Prompt: proffessional thieves AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: there's mentions in this chapter of someone having their drink spiked. Nothing terrible happened, but I thought I'd better let you know.

Stiles pulled his first con aged nine, framing a bully at school for the theft of some exam papers. But it wasn’t until he was fifteen and he met Lydia for the first time that it all fell into the place.

They’re known, in the business, as the twins. Aged fifteen, both small for their age and with big innocent eyes, it had been a good play, a good way of getting themselves underestimated. They’d played the two crazy kids in love card once or twice, but neither of them liked it, and so it was the orphaned siblings they’d returned to again and again, until even they sometimes forgot they weren’t actually related.

They’d never set out to have a crew, but somehow they’ve attracted one, a rag tag bunch they picked up over the years, people who they can rely on, people who provide the specialist knowledge they lack. Friends.

Danny handles all tech, Allison is the muscle, Scott charms old ladies with his winning smile (and young women, and young men, and even the occasional old man). There’s also Jackson, who isn’t technically part of the crew, but hangs around flirting with Lydia, in the hope that no one will notice that he’s in love with Danny. He’s useless and frequently a liability, but Danny gets sad when they threaten him, so he’s fast becoming a fixture.

They’ve also somehow acquired what can best be described as frenemies, a rival team who seem determined to steal all their best jobs. Like this one.

It’s been going well, everything set up for the final hand off, all they need is the mark’s signature on one tiny little piece paper. He’s actually got his pen is his damn hand, when it all goes to shit. Courtesy, as always, of the Hale crew.

It’s Lydia who’s actually making the trade-off, because right now she’s the only one of them who can actually pass for a successful business person, with Stiles in her ear and Danny making sure every moment (except those featuring Lydia’s face) are caught on camera.

Stiles swears he actually sees the mark’s pen touch the paper in his hand, when the door crashes open, and there’s Derek Hale, Boyd behind him, with dark suits and earpieces, and it’s so fucking unfair that their crew can all pass for actual adults when they’re mostly the same age as Stiles.

Stiles has got nothing to suggest, nothing that Lydia wont already have thought of, which is good because a moment later there’s a crackle across the comms, and Peter Hale’s voice says, “She looks good in that suit.”

“You’re a creep,” Stiles tells him flatly. He’s given up being surprised at the way Peter finds ways to communicate with him, no matter how hard Stiles tries to make it for him. “She’s half your age, and this is a secure channel.”

“Can’t a man pay his sister in law a simple compliment without it being misread as sexual?” Peter asks, and Stiles huffs out unwilling laughter.

“We played a couple for a con, one. The names on that marriage certificate are about as fake as Reyes’ boobs. Plus you’re old enough to be my father.”

“I’ve been informed, at some length, that Erica’s boobs are all her own. And you like older men. You told me so yourself, if you remember. In the honeymoon suite.”

“You’d spiked my drink!” Stiles squawks, indignantly. “Nothing I said that night can be held against me. Or anything I did.”

“So when you stripped to your underwear, tried to make out with me and then fell off the balcony, none of that was your fault?”

“No. None. Ask Lydia, she’ll back me up.” (She would, but only because she hated Peter. If anyone else asked she’d cheerfully blame it all on Stiles). “

“And none of what you said was true?”

“None of it.”

“Really. Not even the bit about wearing lacy panties? Because that’s a thought that’s kept me warm on a lot of long cold stakeouts.”

“I did not… Oh my God, please tell me I didn’t tell you that!”

“No, you didn’t. But no-one panics that much over something that isn’t true. Do you always wear them, or just on special occasions? How expensive a meal would I need to buy you before I got to see them?”

“I hate you. Have I told you I hate you?”

“Frequently. Bear in mind though, I am prepared to buy you a very expensive dinner, and get you very drunk.”

“You’re such a creeper. If I agree to go to dinner with you, will you call off Derek?”

“Only if you promise to wear your best panties.”

“Fine. But don’t think you’re getting to see them.”

He can hear the smirk in Peter’s voice as he says, “Oh, I’m sure I’ll be able to convince you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments give me life.


	3. Prompt: known werewolves AU/Office AU

Chief assistant to the Secretary for Supernatural Affairs is a really good job, especially for someone as young as Stiles. He’s fully aware, thank you very much, how lucky he is. He’s just also aware that his boss is pure evil.

He’s not saying that out of any kind of prejudice, he’s no lupophobe. Some of his best friends are literally werewolves. He’s saying it because Peter Hale is a monster.

He’s apparently completely consciousless, terrifyingly single minded and imtimidatingly intelligent. All of which makes him fantastic at his job. The cause of Supernatural rights has been advanced more by Peter Hale single handedly than it was in the entirety of the 20th Century. He’s prepared to go to any lengths, and given that his ‘Protection of American Post-Human Citizens’ bill was passed with a 86% majority in a normally divided house, Stiles thinks the rumours of blackmail are probably true.

Unfortunately all those qualities which make him such a great politician and advocate of Post-human rights, also make him the boss from hell. He’s unreasonable, demanding, rude, sarcastic and apparently completely unable to grasp that Stiles might ever want any time off. And Stiles doesn’t love it, no matter what some people may say (*cough* Lydia *cough*) and he stays because he’s lucky to have such a high profile job and the chance to really impact people’s lives, and not because he watched Secretary a few too many times as a teenager. (It’s a good movie, and Maggie Gylenhal is hot. He wasn’t watching for the BDSM. Well, not after he actually researched BDSM and realised how wrong they were doing it anyway.) And if he did have some kind of office based BDSM fetish, his fantasies absolutely 100% wouldn’t involved Peter Hale, because, as previously mentioned, the man is a total asshole.

He’s just also really, really fit. It’s irritating as hell. Lydia says he has Stockholm syndrome.

Okay, so Stiles is maybe madly in lust with the guy. He still hates him. Everyone (except the average Post-Human in the street, whose lives have been made immeasurably better by Peter) hates Peter Hale. It’s just that Stiles maybe sometimes occasionally fantasises about Peter bending him over the desk and banging him senseless. When he’s supposed to be working.

It’s maybe becoming a problem.

He wrote yesterday’s date as the sexth of November five times. And one of them had been on an email to the President’s office. He at least noticed before he sent that one, but he’s terrified he might have sent some others. He keeps expecting Peter to storm in waving a letter demanding to know why Stiles has signed it “fuck me, oh god Mr Hale, fuck me.” At this point it feels like a genuine possibility.

“Stilinski,” a voice says from the next room, and Stiles nearly jumps out of his skin.

“Coming.” Oh god, did he actually sign a letter like that? He’s going to be fired. Or maybe eviscerated. He’s only once seen Peter’s claws and fangs (and he will never forget that moment, ever) but that seems like something fang-worthy.

“Stilinski,” Peter says when Stiles pushing open the door. “This is the Department of Post-Human Affairs. I am the Secretary of Post-Human affairs. I got this job by being Post-Human. I assume, since you work for me, you are aware of all that?”

“Yes sir.”

“You also, as I recall, have a degree in Post-Human Studies.”

“Yes sir.”

“So you are aware then that I can smell certain emotions.”

Oh god. “Yes sir.”

“Like arousal.”

Stiles raises his hand. “Permission to move to Alaska and become a hermit?”

“Denied. But I agree that something needs to be done. It’s really getting quite hard to focus when I can smell you next door.”

“Your suggestions, sir?” Stiles is equal parts aroused and terrified, because he’s probably about to lose his job, but on the other hand, he’s pretty sure he’s seen this porn film.

Peter stands and pushes the door closes, loosens his tie, and sprawls back into his chair, legs spread.

“You obviously haven’t been taking care of yourself,” Peter says, and oh god that is a porn voice. Peter Hale is doing a porn voice. Stiles is going to die. “How about you show me what you do when you’re alone. Maybe I can come up with a few… suggestions.”


	4. Prompt: Amnesia (bonus points for post season 4)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is pretty dark, and hints at how I think their relationship could go in real life. Which is not well. I don't really think Stiles would give up or give in like he has here, but Peter is a manipulative bastard and Stiles has a bit of a history of being obsessive when it comes to his crushes.

Peter doesn’t remember. Everything since the fire is gone, according to the doctors, and Stiles is only not crying because there’s something broken inside him, and he hasn’t cried for nearly ten years now.

Peter doesn’t remember them. He doesn’t remember their kisses, doesn’t remember the way he used to tease Stiles for still being shy about sex, doesn’t remember that he took pretty much all of Stiles’ firsts, all in one night, because he’s a possessive bastard who couldn’t bear the idea that anyone else might get to take Stiles’ virginity. Doesn’t remember that Stiles had betrayed everything and everyone he loves for Peter.

It had been hard. The hardest decision of Stiles’ life. He thinks he might never really forgive himself for it. But Peter had begged, and pleaded, and it mattered to him so much, and Stiles loved him, and loving someone meant sometimes you had to sacrifice the things you wanted and needed so they could be happy.

But now Peter didn’t even know who he was. It was like being stabbed, every single time, when Peter looked at him like he was just another kid, like he didn’t mean the world to him, like all the sacrifices and promises and blood (oh god the blood, sometimes he thought he would never be free of it, he was turning into Lady fucking Macbeth, washing his clean hands in a desperate attempt to get rid of the memories) had never happened.

He’s worked himself to exhaustion trying to find a cure, because fuck the doctors and their gloomy prognosis, there has to be a way to fix this. Has to be. He has to have Peter back, and he’s prepared to do anything, anything in the world, to get him.

The idea that keeps nudging at his mind, the idea that won’t leave, no matter how hard he tries to dismiss it, is that maybe all Peter needs is to be an Alpha again. That maybe that’s the answer to all his problems. He’s even thought of trying to arrange for Peter to kill Scott. It’s not like Scott thinks he’s a threat anymore. But even as he thinks it, he knows it won’t work. Agreeing to stand by while Kate took Scott was one thing, but he couldn’t lure him to his death. He couldn’t live with that.

Deucalion on the other hand is still and Alpha, and Stiles would feel absolutely no compunction about leading him to his death. He just needs to find him, and get Peter on side.

This is his second chance, his opportunity for redemption, but all he can think about, all he cares about, is getting Peter to look at him like he used to. And he’ll do whatever it takes to get that back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comments are the air I breathe


	5. Prompt: Spies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is my unashamed tribute to paperclipbitch's 00Q fics, complete with making Stiles ace. (Also I like making badass characters Ace because damnit I can do what I like, you're not even my real dad!)

The woman is attractive. If he were feeling melodramatic (and he’d be the first to admit that he is frequently feeling melodramatic) he would say she has curves in all the rights places and death in her eyes, but honestly she’s just slightly prettier than average and her eyes mostly look disbelieving.

Despite what movies may have led you to believe, he very rarely has to seduce anyone for work. Not that this is the first time. It is, though, the first time he’s had to do with an impatient child from the computer and tech crimes department in his ear, making sarcastic comments and impossible demands.

“Programming language,” the kid is saying. “Find out about the programming language, because we’re having some trouble with the roaming algorithms, it looks like they’re written using the bastard child of python and ruby, and Danny’s even tried converting it back to machine code, but we still can’t work out how it’s adapting the way it does.”

Peter wishes, for the hundredth time that night, that he could tell the irritating little shit to just shut up without alerting the woman to the fact that he’s wearing an earpiece.

“You are okay?” the woman asks, leaning in close. She’s a genius, one of the brightest minds in the world of electronic warfare, and she spends all her free time on online dating sites. Setting up a private meeting with her had been laughably easy. Getting her to spill technical details when she thinks she’s on a date with a charming American banker on an extended holiday.

“I’m more than okay,” he tells her, kissing her hand. “I had a delicious dinner, and now the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen has invited me into her home .”

She blushes, and giggles, and looks pleased, exactly like she was supposed to. Honestly, it’s a little depressing how predictable this all is.

“Is she actually falling for that? I can’t believe she’s falling for that. That was like the cheesiest most clichéd line ever. I thought she was supposed to be a genius! Well, I say that, she is a genius, I’ve looked at her design and I’m telling you, if I liked girls or sex I would totally sleep with her. The way she used language as a security protocol is just beautiful.”

“I shall bring us coffee?” Dr Abbes asks. “Perhaps something stronger?”

“Well I’m not one to say no to a drink,” Peter says with a smile. “While you do that, could I use your bathroom?”

She shows him the way, and Peter lets out a relieved sigh as her leans back against the closed door. It’s been four hours since he said anything rude or sarcastic, and it’s starting to get to him.

“You haven’t got anything useful this entire time,” the voice in his ear says irritably. “I’ve wasted five hours of my extremely valuable time listening to you do a frankly unconvincing impersonation of a charming human being. You have to get some actual data, I’ve got time sensitive projects waiting. Is this what normal people dates are always like? How do you stand it?”

“I don’t,” Peter replies, relieved beyond words to finally be able to answer back. Four hours of gritting his teeth and keeping silent while the sarcastic little shit monologues at him has been almost unbearable. “You think I enjoy this horrific banality? I’m going to have to fuck that woman, and if I have to suffer through that, then so do you. And how, exactly, do you propose I work your damn programming languages into small talk? Huh? You have beautiful hair. By the way, could you please tell me all about your missile control programmes?”

“Personally, I’d be delighted if someone asked me that on a date.”

“Yes, but this woman isn’t an insane asexual child!”

There’s a knock on the door, tentative and quiet. “You are okay? You are talking very much.”

“I’m fine, sorry. Just… nerves. I’ll be out soon.”

“Look I may be young and eccentric. And Ace. But I’m a nerd, she’s a nerd. I speak her language. At least let me try? I promise I’ll take all the blame if it goes wrong.”

Peter runs his hands through his hair. “This is going to be a disaster,” he mutters. “Fuck it, I’m sick of this charming shit. Tell me what to say.”


	6. Prompt: Horror/Fairy Tale

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stiles inherited more than long lashes and a high metabolism from his mother.
> 
>  
> 
> (A Pilgrim inspired AU)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heavily inspired by Sebastian Baczkiewicz's wonderful Pilgrim radio series. Series 1 is available for download on Amazon, for those who don't have access to radio 4, and I would urge you all to go listen. It's one of my all time favourite fantasy series. You don't need to know Pilgrim to enjoy this though.
> 
> I've ended up combining the prompts for days 6 and 7, so I'll posting this one in two parts, second part (theoretically) up tomorrow.

“I could give you power little boy,” the Warlock says, his foul rotting mouth way way too close to Stiles’ face.

“You can’t give me shit,” Stiles says, hoping like hell the pack find him soon. They won’t be long, the Warlock wasn’t bright enough to mask his scent and they’ll realize something’s wrong when Stiles doesn’t arrive at the rendezvous, but every second is too long. “You can’t control your own power, it’s rotting you from the inside out. Nothing you can teach me old man.”

The Warlock laughs, and Stiles wasn’t joking about the guy’s power. He stinks of rotting flesh, sweet and sickly, and Stiles is having to fight to keep his dinner down.

“Think you know better than me, little boy? Think you’re better than me?”

Yes, Stiles wants to scream, a hundred times yes, but the woods are Derek’s territory not his, and he’s not strong enough to do anything serious outside his own patch. He thinks wistfully of the oak in his back garden, the one his mother planted, a storehouse of raw power, and wishes he didn’t rely on something static in order to actually do anything vaguely useful.

“I don’t want to hurt you, little boy,” the Warlock says, his voice rough like a fifty a day smoker. “I just need the wolves, need to make the sacrifice. Then I’ll let you go, little boy, let you go home.”

There’s something in the way the man is looking at him, something covetous that makes Stiles’ stomach turn, but it’s something he can use, so he mentally stores away all his self-respect in a little box at the back of his mind and tips his head back, looking up into to the old man’s face with his best little lost puppy look, the one not even Isaac can best.

“Promise?” he asks, and if his voice is a little husky, well, he was going to be sick after this anyway, so what’s a little more shame.

“Oh pretty little boy,” the Warlock croons, reaching out for Stiles’ face, and that’s all Stiles needs.

He sinks his teeth into the old man’s hand, hard enough that he tastes blood, rancid and sickly with decay. The Warlock screams, loses his grip on Stiles, and Stiles dives away, summoning up the shadows as his goes, wrapping them around himself like a cloak, until he knows only the wolves would be able to find him.

Peter appears only a second later, knocks the Warlock out with a blow, and Stiles wonders how much he saw.

 

* * *

 

“You know you’d be a whole lot safer if you just took the bite,” Peter says, his voice way too close to Stiles’ ear for comfort.

Stiles yelps, and leaps away, and glares at Peter’s delighted smirk. “You are a fucking creep, Peter,” he tells him, irritated with himself for getting caught out like that. His instincts think of Derek’s apartment as a safe place, but his instincts are fucking stupid, and he doesn’t trust them. They let Peter creep up on him, and Isaac steal his coffee.

“That’s not a no,” Peter says smugly.

Stiles lets himself take a moment to contemplate how that would actually work, and then to wonder whether Derek would be more or less grumpy if he was timeless. More, he thinks, definitely more.

“I don’t want the bite, Peter,” he says, and he knows his heart his pounding, and thinks from the appraising look Peter gives him that this time he knows it’s not because Stiles is lying. Or rather it is, but it’s not the lie people think.

 

* * *

 

The… woman really isn’t the right word, but it’s the only one he’s letting himself think, because he has zero brain to mouth filter, is beautiful. She radiates power, so bright he’s struggling to see her actual face, but he doesn’t need too because he can see the elegant lines of her arms and legs, feel the force of her will.

He doesn’t know exactly what she is, because the classifications vary from country to country, and when she’d spoken her voice had been rich and deep with an accent he thinks is West African, though he’s not sure. Definitely not American. He doesn’t need to know what magizoologists would classify her as though, he knows what she wants and he has an idea of what she can do, and that’s enough to scare him shitless.

He’s crouched behind a tree, wondering why it is that magical creatures only ever attack when he’s too far from home to have any real power, listening to Peter’s frantic breathing beside him and trying to resist the lure of her power. It’s a good thing she’s not actually trying to seduce him, because even just this hint of her rage is intoxicating.

“Any ideas?” Peter asks him, voice low.

They can see Derek across the clearing, half slumped in the underground, cradling his scorched arm. Cora is beside him, an arm slung comfortingly across his shoulders, and Scott is not here, because Stiles is a fucking idiot who forgot what magic like this does to cell phones.

The Lady’s power is making the leaves on the clearing floor whither and blacked like they’re being burned by invisible flames. They haven’t got long before she tires of playing with them and finishes this.

“Why would I have ideas?” Stiles asks, not taking his eyes off the woman. He can just make out her outline in the light, the swell of her belly and the soft slump of her breasts and it makes his mouth go dry.

“I don’t know,” Peter snaps beside him. “I thought I’d ask since I don’t have any, and Derek’s about to get roasted by an angry… whatever the hell that thing is.”

Stiles bristles at the word thing, and hopes Peter doesn’t notice.

“Spirit,” he says, because it’s close enough. “Some kind of vengeful spirit I think.”

“Well whatever it is, it’s going to kill us if we don’t come up with a smart idea in the next five minutes,” Peter growls.

Stiles sighs, and struggles to his feet. His idea isn’t smart, not in the least, but since Peter’s freaking out he figures it’s the best one they’ve got.

The full force of her magnetic power hits him when he steps into the clearing, making him sway on his feet.

“My Lady,” he says, bowing, because politeness is never a bad idea when dealing with the grey folk, even if this one is more of a burnt orange, or her power is at least. “I am Stilinski.” No point giving her a false name, she’d definitely know.

She strides towards him, feet not quite touching the ground, and now she’s close enough that he’s inside her power, can see her clearly, and smell her too. She smells of smoke and spices, hot dry earth and warm skin. Her eyes glitter like the heart of a fire as she surveys him.

“Child,” she says at last, inclining her head a scant inch. “This is not your land.”

“No,” Stiles admits. “It’s kinda, next door. So the, er, werewolves, they’re my neighbors.”

“I am here for the head of that one,” the Lady says, inclining her head towards Derek. She still hasn’t given him a name. “It is duty. You’d do better to stay out of my way.”

Stiles bows again, out of nervousness more than anything. The light of her power is making her dark skin gleam, and it’s making her pull harder to fight. Damn being seventeen.

“I can’t do that Lady. He’s my… friend. I think. He doesn’t deserve to die, anyway.”

“He took the life of one of my charges,” the woman says severely. “I will take his head.”

“Your charges?” Stiles’ mind races, trying to think which of the supernatural threats they’ve faced recently might have had protection this powerful.

“Slaves, child, and their children, and their children’s children. I am charged with bringing vengeance to those white men who think they can raise a hand to them without consequence. I bring justice for those too weak to mete it themselves.”

Boyd, Stiles thinks, his heart sinking. She means Boyd.

“He wasn’t a slave though,” he says, trying to find a way out. “He was a free man, and the son of a free man.” He assumes that’s true, he doesn’t actually know anything about Boyd’s dad, but it seems pretty damn likely what with the civil war having been nearly a 150 years ago.

“He was my charge,” the woman says, apparently unimpressed. Stiles assumes that means that when she said the children of slaves, she meant all their descendants. He wonders how she got charged with this mission, whether she’d rather be free of it. Pictures some desperate man or woman, scared and hurt and far from home, bought and sold like cattle, summoning this glorious spirit, commanding her to do what they could not.

“Derek isn’t a racist,” Stiles says. “I mean, he didn’t kill Boyd on purpose. He didn’t want to kill him, I swear it. It was an accident.”

She looks unimpressed, but Stiles thinks the force of her power dims a little, makes it a little easier for him to breathe and think.

“You are powerful, Lady,” Stiles says, mind racing. “You can see into hot-blood minds, even werewolves.”

“As if children of the wild could stand against me,” she says, her tone full of derision.

“Exactly!” Stiles says, his certainty rising that he’s finally on the right track. “Look into Derek’s mind, Lady, his heart. Look for his guilt, his shame. You’ll see I’m not lying. He didn’t mean to hurt Boyd, and he mourns for him.” He takes a deep breath, and says, “look into my mind, Lady. I was there. I saw it. I mourned with him.”

He braces himself, summons all his courage, but her mental touch is gentle, warm as summer sunlight and as insubstantial as smoke.

After a long moment, during which he pours all his willpower into not fidgeting, her mental touch withdraws, thought not quickly enough to keep Stiles from feeling the depth of her grief. It’s more emotion than he’s ever felt from one of her kind, and it’s for hot-bloods. He feels a rush of awe, can’t believe that he’s really talking to someone this powerful.

“You spoke truly, Mr Stilinski,” she says, and her voice is warm now, her power gentle. “I thank you for it. The wild one will punish himself enough. I need not intervene.”

Stiles is shaking, he notices vaguely, as he bows again. “Thank you Lady. You are just.”

“I am justice, little one,” she says, smiling at him. Her smile is soft and motherly and beautiful and Stiles wants desperately to throw himself at her feet and pledge his fealty to her, her happiness more compelling even than her rage.

Before he can embarrass himself completely, her power flares, knocking to the ground, and she’s gone.

There’s a long moment of silence, and then he hears footsteps behind him, and Peter’s voice, dry and just a little worried, saying, “What did you just do?”

“Didn’t you see?” Stiles asks, not wanting to admit more than he has to.

“Couldn’t see anything once you stepped inside her power,” Peter tells him. “Just light.”

Stiles doesn’t let out a sigh of relief, because that would be a massive fucking giveaway, but he wants too.

“I talked her out of it,” he says, because it’s the truth. “She’d just got some facts muddled.”

“Muddled,” Peter says, sounding like he doesn’t believe a word of it.

“She thought Derek murdered Boyd,” Stiles says. “I explained that it was an accident, she said sorry for wasting our time and left.”

Peter looks disbelieving, but Stiles isn’t lying, and the Lady is gone, so he doesn’t argue.

That night, when he’s sitting with his back against the trunk of his oak, he thinks he hears a voice, distant and faint, but familiar, say, “it’s a beautiful tree, child.”

He buries some bread, and says a quick prayer for the Lady, and then he walks the edge of his home, renewing and reinforcing the protections, just in case.

 

* * *

 

There’s a horseshoe nailed to the door of Derek’s apartment.

There’s a horseshoe nailed to the fucking door and Stiles hates Peter so fucking much. He’s going to find out where he lives and fill his whole fucking apartment with yellow monkshood, see how he fucking likes it!

He takes a deep breath, makes himself calm down. This isn’t for him, he tells himself. No one knows. Peter’s just being careful, after the Lady last week reminded him that shifters and druids aren’t all that’s out there. He just has to act like nothing’s wrong, and no one will ever know.

(But he’s still going to get Peter back for this, in some ingenious way that can’t possibly be traced back to him.)

Making himself open the door is the hardest thing he’s had to do for fucking ages, but he’s determined, and he’s mostly human, and no way is he going to beaten by a fucking door, or by Peter fucking Hale, so he does it, gets his hand on the knob and the door half open, and then he has to stop, bend over and pant because apparently he’s less human than he thought.

When he looks up Peter is looking down at him interestedly.

“Are you going to come in?” he asks, tipping his head to one side as he contemplates Stiles.

“Only if you get me a glass of milk,” Stiles says, because if his body is going to insist on not being human he might as well go the whole hog.

To his embarrassment, Peter’s invitation makes entering significantly easier.

Peter gives him the milk in a glass, not a saucer, but he eyes Stiles suspiciously the entire time he’s drinking it.

Yellow monkshood, Stiles thinks viciously.

 

* * *

 

Peter has a copy of his school record. He doesn’t know how Peter has a copy of his school record, but this time he’s actually going to kill him.

“Is your name seriously Bajeczny?” Peter asks, and Stiles is grudgingly impressed by his Polish pronunciation.

“My name is Stiles,” Stiles says, because he may try to be as human as he can most of the time, but his name is something he refuses to compromise on.

“Says Bajeczny here,” Peter says, waving his school admission form at him. “Doesn’t that mean like a fairy tale?”

“You Googled it, didn’t you,” Stiles says gloomily. “You stole my school records and then you Googled the damn name.”

“I was interested,” Peter says with a shrug. “Names are powerful things, you know.”

Stiles takes that to mean Peter thinks he’s some kind of witch.

“Well powerful or not, my name is Stiles,” he insists. “I don’t answer to anything else.”

Not even his mother had ever called him anything else. His first name was a joke, because she’d had to put something when she registered his birth, and she always did have an odd sense of humor. Her first choice had been Leszy, which was easier to spell and pronounce, but a lot less subtle.

“Bajeczny,” Peter says again, and Stiles begins planning ways to find out where Peter lives.

“I’m not going to obey your every whim just because you know the damn name,” Stiles tells him. “If I were a witch, you’d have noticed it by now. I’d get beaten up a whole lot less for one thing."

“I’m always impressed,” Peter says, setting the papers down on the table, “by how much lore you know.”

“My best friend’s a werewolf,” Stiles says, defensively. “I Google the supernatural a lot.”

“You should be careful,” Peter says, not taking his eyes off him. “Google can be very unreliable.”

 

* * *

 

If one more magical creature tries to give him their powers, he’s going to… well, he’s going to do something really drastic. Possibly climb his oak and refuse to come down. It’s not very tall yet, or very sturdy, but it’s his tree, so it’s not like him being up it would hurt it, or like anyone would be able to get him down against his will.

In its human form, the Kushtaka looks like a slight man, with brown hair and skin the color of a latte, but it’s still got an otter’s eyes, huge and melting with long lashes, and too many teeth and it’s way too adorable for something that’s killed four people.

“Just come into the water,” it says, its voice wheedling. “Come in and swim and you’ll have all the power you could want.”

“I don’t want your damn powers,” Stiles shouts. “Why will nobody listen? I don’t need any magical fucking powers!”

The Kushtaka shrugs, like it’s not bothered either way, and says, “You’re still coming swimming, boy.”

Stiles shakes his head, taking a step away. “You don’t want to eat me,” he tells the advancing creature. “You seriously don’t, I’m all stringing, not tasty at all.”

“Oh, you look very tasty to me,” the creature says, and Stiles, idiot that he is, actually stops moving while he tries to work out whether that was meant as an innuendo or not.

The creature grabs him, long claws growing out of its fingers and digging into his arm, dragging him towards the lake.

Stiles fights with all his strength, yelling when its claws tear deep gashes into his arm, but not managing to get away. He swears at the thing, tries to kick it and only succeeds in losing his footing, making it even easier for the deceptively strong creature to pull him closer and closer to the water, until he can feel it lapping at his ankles.

Taking a deep breath Stiles summons every drop of power he’s got, and some he hasn’t, and reaches out to the plants in the lake. They’re sleepy, so slow to respond he thinks for a moment that they’re dead, but they’re not, they’re alive and they hear him. He coaxes them, begs, pushes more power than he can afford to lose into them, and they reach out, catching hold of the Kushtaka, pulling it into the lake.

For a few seconds Stiles thinks that his plan has backfired, that the plants are just going to speed up his drowning, but then the Kushtaka flails, lets go of his wrist to begin tugging and tearing at the coontail stems now knotting themselves around its ankles. Stiles whimpers when it grabs a handful and rips it away, shredding the delicate stems.

There’s a yell from the behind him, and then Scott is there, and Isaac, and Cora, all fighting to be the one to drag him back out of the lake.

The Kushtaka is pulling out plants by the handful now, and Stiles is screaming, is vaguely aware of the distant sound of his own continuous agonized yell, but everything is fuzzy and distant, and he barely remembers to pull back what little is left of his power before he passes out.

He wakes up in his own bed half an hour later and manages to summon the strength to stagger downstairs, and out into the garden. He wraps himself around his tree and lets the familiar pulse of the earth lull him back to sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Comment pleeeeease

**Author's Note:**

> COMMENT!!!


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